Joe Francis

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Joseph R. (Joe) Francis (born April 1, 1973) ^[1] is a pornographer and the founder of Mantra Films, Inc.,^[2] which produces the Girls Gone Wild and Guys Gone Wild DVD series. Francis, who grew up in Laguna Beach, California,^[3] graduated from the University of Southern California in 1995 with a degree in Business Administration.^[4] He founded Mantra at the age of 24. He has appeared on Howard Stern's radio show, and as a guest on The Man Show and other television programs. He has been in conflict with the law on frequent occasions with charges including rape and sexual assault.

Francis has been criticised by social commentators and third wave feminists such as Ariel Levy for perpetuating "the new double standard" which equates the objectification of women with sexual liberation.^[5]Francis built his empire upon the premise that he could capture, on video, college age women, "going wild" including baring their breasts for the cameras at spring breaks and other locales. This is believed to be the first reality style late night entertainment not involving scripts or real actors; the incentive to the young woman was most often a T-Shirt. As a result, Mantra recorded sales in excess of $100 million per year^[6]^[7]

In the world of pop culture, Francis' Girls Gone Wild was recently named number 23 on USA Today's list of the "25 Trends that Changed America"^[8].

1 Controversies
- 1.1 Abduction
2 Litigation
3 References
4 External links

Controversies

As an individual, controversies surrounding Francis have included allegations of rape, sexual assault and conspiracy to use minors in sexual performances, as well as a drama in which he was kidnapped and allegedly tortured.

Mantra films has come under legal attack on a number of occasions. Recurring allegations include that women engaged in sexual activity were covertly filmed without their consent, that Mantra films engaged in sexual exploitation of minors and that incomplete records were kept of participants in GGW videos.^[9]. ^[10] ^[11] Today the videos, which sell for as little as $9.99 a piece, contribute to a total sales figure of almost $100 million per year for Mantra Films, Inc.^[3]

Abduction

According to Radar^[12], in 2004, Francis was kidnapped, held at gunpoint and videotaped in sexually degrading positions^[13]. He was subsequently blackmailed. In an interview on July 24, 2006, on The Adam Carolla Show, Francis stated that he was in fact kidnapped, held at gunpoint, and later blackmailed for the tape. He denied that he performed sexual acts, but stated that he was only forced to say "something like" "I'm a homosexual." on the camera. The tape, or a copy of it, was recovered by the LAPD for use in the criminal trial of his assailant, Darnell Riley. On February 7, 2006, Riley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years and eight months in Corcoran State Prison.

In a later interview on Jan 31, 2007, on The Howard Stern Show, Francis told Stern more details of the abduction^[14] stating that Riley, wearing a mask, came behind Francis while walking home and told him to get on the floor. Riley tied Francis up. Joe stated that Riley did in fact have a gun. During the interview Francis was audibly slow and seemed distant. Stern asked if Francis was on Oxycodone but Francis said he was not^[15].

Francis also told his tale on Dateline NBC on March 4, 2007.

In the August 6, 2006 issue of West (the Sunday magazine of the Los Angeles Times)^[16], an article by Claire Hoffman followed Francis across the country. In it, Hoffman bore witness to Francis' numerous alleged illegal activities, including habitual supply of alcohol to underage girls. Hoffman reported Francis' alleged rape of an 18 year old virgin, Jannel Szyszka. Quoting Szyska, who was under the legal drinking age in the USA and had allegedly been supplied by alcohol by Francis and her entourage, Hoffman wrote, "Eventually, Szyszka says, Francis told the cameraman to leave and pushed her back on the bed, undid his jeans and climbed on top of her. "I told him it hurt, and he kept doing it. And I keep telling him it hurts. I said, 'No' twice in the beginning, and during I started saying, 'Oh, my god, it hurts.' I kept telling him it hurt, but he kept going, and he said he was sorry but kissed me so I wouldn't keep talking." ... Then, she says, he opened the door and told the cameraman to come back, saying, "She's not a virgin anymore."...She says she's haunted by that night". After the report was published, Francis and his lawyer issued contradictory statements, Francis denying that he engaged in sexual intercourse with Szyszka, while his lawyer claimed that intercourse had occurred consensually. Hoffman also reported that she herself was assaulted and "humiliated" physically by Francis in front of his cheering entourage, stating that "the pressure he applied was so intense that hours later, my arms were covered in red hand marks".

Litigation

Francis has been a party to several lawsuits. Some stem from activities during the filming of videos and others from the company's practices.

Criminal

In an incident at Panama City Beach, Florida, during spring break 2003, Francis was arrested and then released on $165,000 bond. He was initially charged with 71 separate counts, including racketeering, drug trafficking, and child pornography. Police confiscated his private jet and other property^[17]. At a July 27, 2006 hearing the judge threw out 200 hours of videotape and hundreds of other key pieces of evidence in the case^[18]. On January 4, 2007, the judge dismissed almost all of the charges stemming from the Panama City case ^[19] claiming that "the evidence did not support the allegations...."

In March 2004, a Texas college student accused Francis of raping her in his Miami hotel room. She told police that after she met Francis in a bar in South Beach, Florida, where they argued over the morality of "Girls Gone Wild" videos, she went to his room at the Ritz-Carlton for a drink and awoke the next morning in bed next to him with no memory of the previous evening after Francis had offered her a drink. Francis reported that he had consensual sex with the woman. The state attorney's office declined to press charges and noted that a blood test did not show any evidence of drugs.^[20] Francis has sued his accuser for over $25 million - plus thirty-six dollars - for defamation;^[21] the $36 representing the breakfast she and her girlfriend had eaten and charged to the hotel room after the alleged rape.

On September 12, 2006, Mantra Films pled guilty to charges that it failed to create and maintain age and identity documents for performers in sexually explicit films that it produced and distributed, and that it failed to label its DVDs and videotapes as required by federal law. Mantra and a second related company, MRA Holdings LLC, entered into an agreement to pay a joint $2.1 million in fines and restitution - $500,000 of which to be paid by Francis personally^[22]^[23].

Civil

In January 2001, a Los Angeles jury found Francis liable for infringement of the concept of Banned From Television, a series of extreme videotapes that preceded Girls Gone Wild. The jury awarded producer Les Haber a total of $3.5 million on his IP claim against Francis.^[3]

In 2000, the property manager of Francis' Santa Monica apartment, Stephanie Van de Motter, obtained a restraining order requiring that he stay at least 100 yards away from her. According to court documents, she said that Francis, upset about the noise garbage collectors made in the mornings, had harassed and threatened her, twice climbing up to her bedroom window and pounding violently on the glass and screaming obscenities at her whenever he saw her. He appeared in her office several times, she said, asking for her by using the crude word for female genitalia, and left messages with a co-worker: "Tell the bitch this is war."

In 2003, Darian Mathias-Patterson, who scouted locations and arranged for the rental of a space for a Halloween party Francis threw, filed a police report, saying he had threatened to kill her when she told him she couldn't return his $25,000 deposit because the 2,000 guests had trashed the place. He hurled profanities at her, she told police, saying, "I'm going to [expletive] get you, you [expletive] whore" and repeatedly used the same crude word. Two weeks later, Mathias-Patterson, who was pregnant, miscarried. She later sued Francis and his company in Los Angeles County Superior Court for emotional distress, and the case was settled for an undisclosed amount.

In 2002, Becky Lynn Gritzke discovered that she had been covertly filmed flashing her breasts at a Mardi Gras festival and that the image had been used without her permission on billboards advertising Girls' Gone Wild videos and even on the cover of a GGW video. She sued Mantra Films and settled for an undisclosed sum, rumoured to be about $5 million dollars, under an agreement according to which GGW agreed to cease distributing all material bearing Gritzke's image.^[24]

Administrative proceedings before the FTC

A 2003 complaint against Mantra Films, Inc. resulted in a $1.1 million payout by the company. The complaint stemmed from the practice of enrolling customers in continuity programs without their consent. The penalty was partially to redress the customers who were harmed, and also a civil penalty.^[2]

On December 16, 2003, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission against Mantra Films, Inc., and its sole officer and director Joseph R. Francis, seeking civil penalties for violations of previous Commission determinations concerning unfair and deceptive acts or practices and consumer redress. Violations of previous Commission determinations that an act or practice is unfair or deceptive and unlawful carry a civil penalty of up to $11,000 per violation. The Commission’s complaint alleges that since December 2000, Mantra and Francis deceptively marketed Girls Gone Wild videos and DVDs to consumers, automatically shipped these unordered videos and DVDs to consumers, and charged consumers for them without consumers’ consent.^[25]

On July 30, 2004, the FTC announced a stipulated court order under which the sellers of ‘Girls Gone Wild’ DVDs and videos would pay nearly $1.1 million as combined consumer redress and a civil penalty and will be barred from a wide range of activities detailed in a complaint the U.S. Department of Justice filed on behalf of the FTC in late 2003. According to the FTC, the defendants marketed ‘Girls Gone Wild’ DVDs and videos as part of continuity programs that resulted in monthly shipments of DVDs or videos to consumers who did not agree to receive them.^[26]

On September 12, 2006, Joe Francis, the founder and CEO of Mantra Films Inc., pleaded guilty to federal charges of failing to document the ages of young women engaging in sexual acts in the videos, as federal law requires. There was a plea agreement, part of which required Francis to pay $2.1 million: a $500,000 fine and $1.6 million in restitution. ^[27] A 2006 episode of Law & Order explored some of the controversy with Girls Gone Wild, using a fictional organization with similar practices.

On December 13, 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Mantra Films had been sentenced to pay $1.6 million in criminal fines for failing to create and maintain age and identity records for films it produced, and that the “package agreement” between the government and Mantra Films, MRA Holdings, LLC and Joe Francis required a public acknowledgment of criminal wrongdoing, a pledge of cooperation with the government in future investigations, full compliance with the record keeping laws, and payment of a total of $2.1 million in fines and restitution.^[28]^[29]

Joseph Francis, founder and CEO of both Mantra Films and MRA Holdings, LLC, was scheduled to be sentenced on similar offenses in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on January 22, 2007. ^[30] Under a three-year deferred prosecution agreement, MRA Holdings, LLC, is to employ an independent outside monitor to ensure that the company complies with federal laws. ^[31] In January 2007, Circuit Judge Dedee Costello in Pensacola, Florida dropped most of the charges against Francis ^[32] claiming that "the evidence did not support the allegations...". However, the remaining felony counts charge that Francis and the company used and conspired to use minors in sexual performances, charges which carry a combined maximum penalty of 40 years in prison. Two misdemeanor counts which also remain charge Francis and the company with prostitution.^[33]